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China Sends Aircraft Carrier to Taiwan Strait

China on Wednesday morning sent an aircraft carrier into the Taiwan Strait, in a significant, defiant move that displayed Beijing’s increasing naval strength. The carrier, the Liaoning, is China’s sole craft of its type, and the symbolic gesture will likely mean a foreign-policy issue awaits President-elect Donald Trump when he becomes commander in chief. Bonnie S. Glaser, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told The New York Times, “It’s a show of force, and I think it is intended in part to intimidate, and that’s worrisome from the U.S. and Taiwan’s point of view because we don’t know how much more they are going to ratchet up these pressures and tensions.” She added, “If the Trump administration does see this as a test of U.S. resolve, I suspect they’ll push back pretty forcefully.” Trump notably broke longstanding tradition by chatting on the phone with Taiwan’s president, Tsai Ing-wen, after he won the U.S. presidential election.